Entangled
by gh0st.of.paradis3
Summary: Sirens were never something Lance could have ever thought existed. Sirens are just souls lost to the woes of the world, forced to spend an eternity in the ocean searching for a second chance at life. Lance gets dragged into this world, and the more he tries to escape, the thicker the web becomes. If he wants to save his raven-haired siren, Lance might lose more than his humanity.
1. Chapter 1: Förlust - Loss

The soft pitter patter of the rain on the black umbrella he held was the only sound that Lance could hear. He could see the drops entering the almost still water of the ocean before him, but their sound couldn't reach his ears. His mind had all but shut down after the events of that day.

It hurt, to say the least.

Looking out over the grey water, reflecting the sky above it as the heavens seemed to cry for what had been lost, Lance stepped a little closer to the pier. A part of him was afraid to go any farther, the memories that the rickety wood held being almost too much for his heartbroken mind to comprehend.

The funeral had been that day. He still wore the dark suit that his mother had picked out. It had to be returned in a few days, since he had only been renting it. There was a light breeze, and it picked up the hem of the jacket, sending a wave of cold up his back.

 _What am I even doing here…? Its not gonna bring her back._ That thought send a stab of guilt through Lance's chest. No, she wasn't coming back. Not anymore. Not after he...Lance shook his head. Placing the guilt on himself and going down that road wasn't going to help anything.

He fiddled with the key-chain in his pants pocket, thumb sliding over the slick surface of the metal backing.

Sighing, the brunet took another few steps forward. He had come to the docks, to the lagoon that was nearby, for a reason. He wasn't going to give up on the one thing they has asked of him before they died. No, he was going to accomplish this _one_ thing, even if it meant tearing his heart to pieces.

As he got closer to the splintered wood of the pier, Lance kept his eyes on the ground, on the rain that turned the normally well packed dirt into muddy puddles.

"Some days, I wish I could die."

The words were spoken so softly, Lance almost didn't hear them. Eyes rising slowly, Lance caught sight of someone already standing at the ends of the docs. The umbrella the person held at their shoulder obscured most of their back, and the brunet could really only see the long, white shirt and dark slacks they wore. They had no shoes.

 _What are they doing? Why did they say that?_

These questions were not answered.

A sudden large gust of wind blew towards them, knocking the umbrella from the stranger's hands and sending his hair flying about. His, because Lance was able to tell from his vantage point that the person was male, or at least that he appeared to be.

As the umbrella tumbled off into the waves, the man picked up a hand to tuck some of those wild, raven tresses behind his ear.

"I hear you; I'm coming."

Again the voice was so soft, almost musical. It seemed to draw Lance in, one word at a time, a step for every utterance. He could hear the soft cadence of sadness in the man's voice. But who was he talking to? It couldn't have been Lance; he hadn't even said anything, and he was fairly certain that the raven-haired man didn't even know he was there.

And then, out of nowhere, the man was diving into the water.

"Wait!" Lance yelled as he stumbled into a run, trying to get to the edge of the pier. He dropped his umbrella and it tumbled off the edge to sit with the other that had been abandoned only moments before. _He can't just jump in there right now! It's too dangerous._ But as the brunet fell to his knees on the edge of the pier and looked over, the man was nowhere to be found.

Lance's eyes might have been deceiving him, but something caught his attention. A glow, and then shimmering red, like scales. As whatever it was rose further towards the surface, Lance saw the shimmering morph into a shape, an outline. The outline of a person, but only half of it looked...human.

 _What...is that…?_ Lance's thoughts stuttered. He couldn't comprehend what he was seeing.

Because right in front of him, swimming further out to sea, was a mermaid, tail and all.

The man...was a mermaid.

"I'm _telling_ you, man! It was a mermaid!" Lance paused with his hands out in front of him, equidistant to each other, and squinted one eye. "Mer...man?" When all his friends did was exchange a look, the brunet threw up his hands and plunked back down into his seat. "Whatever you wanna call it, it was there. I saw the guy _turn into_ a fish person when he jumped into the water."

Sighing, Hunk gave Lance a sad look. "Are you sure you weren't just drunk?"

Lance leaned back in the chair, an incredulous look on his face. "Why would I have been drunk?"

"You _did_ go to a funeral yesterday," the small blonde next to Hunk piped in, turning a page in the instruction manual they were reading.

Lance forcibly closed the manual on them and argued, "You don't drink at funerals, Pidge. You're thinking of wakes." When Pidge adjusted their glasses and settled a bored look on Lance, the brunet took his hands away and crossed his arms over his chest. "I know what I saw. And I wasn't drunk. Why would you even think that I would show up drunk at her funeral?"

 _Ah, shit_. Lance could feel the corners of his eyes prick at the thought of the funeral. Turning his gaze away from his friends and their twin looks of concern, the tall brunet swiped a thumb at the corner of one eye.

"Lance, you know-"

"Yeah, like, that's not what I meant," Pidge finished, cutting off Hunk's answer. The darker-skinned teen glanced at his partner.

"We were just trying to joke around with you."

"Sure doesn't seem like it," Lance muttered out, blue eyes resting on a spot near his feet, which were tucked underneath Hunk's desk. At that last comment, his friends went silent.

Lance knew that he was being extra defensive, that he was hurting them unnecessarily, but it hurt him, okay? Their lack of understanding when it came to _her_ was always something that Lance couldn't get over. They hadn't known her like Lance had, and it destroyed him to think that she was gone. All because of…

His thoughts were cut short as a bell rang above them, signaling they end of their study period. As the brunet attempted to shove his belongings in his bag, mostly his abandoned homework for his next class, he kept his eyes glued to the floor. He didn't want to see the looks of pity he was sure Hunk and Pidge were giving him.

Letting out a breath, Lance finally looked up at his friends. It was a little shocking to find that they had not been looking at him in pity. Instead, they wore matching looks of amusement. Drawing his brows together, Lance straightened. "What?" When they said nothing, preferring to just glance at each other, the brunet rolled his eyes. "Okay, then don't tell me."

"Just...just wait for it." Pidge snorted lightly, turned their head and shoving their face into Hunk's arm. The larger man, in turn, said nothing.

Rolling his eyes at them again, Lance turned. Whatever it was they were trying to do wasn't gonna work on him. However, just as he thought those words and took a step forward, something yanked him back and he was flying backwards to land right back into his chair. Yelping as he fell, Lance threw his hands out, hoping to catch onto something, anything, and found nothing. Tailbone striking the hard plastic of the chair forcibly, Lance groaned.

The brunet looked down and found that, somehow, the strap of his backpack had gotten wrapped around the leg of his chair, and when he had tried to stand up, it had caught and forced him to sit once more.

His friends burst out into frenzied laughter. It wasn't long before Lance joined in, because how the hell hadn't he noticed that? True, the brunet could be rather...unobservant when his emotions were high, but this was a bit much.

"Jesus, did you _see_ how fast I went down!?" he blurted out, swiping a hand through his hair and leaning his head over the back of the chair, grinning up at his friends.

Helping the brunet to stand, Hunk snorted lightly and Pidge lifted the chair so that Lance could disengage his backpack from it.

Once everything was back in its rightful place, the three headed off towards their next classes. If the exchange seemed odd, in Lance's mind, it was pretty normal. It had always been like that between them. One of them would get upset about something, and then something funny would happen and it would be like they were never upset in the first place. It might not have been the best way to deal with his own emotions, but Lance figured it was easier than rehashing all the things that upset him. At this point in his life, that list was getting mighty long.

As he passed the window in the hallway that led to his chemistry lab, Lance glanced out over the houses and streets below that all led to the beach and the piers. Eyes locking on the one pier way out past where all the boats and beach goers normally frequented, the pier that had so many memories for him, Lance wondered if the mermaid he had seen had been real, or if it really was just his imagination.

A part of him wanted it to be just his mind playing tricks on him.

But his heart wanted it to be real.

The rest of the school day had been fairly uneventful. Lance had decided to keep the whole mermaid thing in the back of his mind, needing to focus on his last few classes. He was already falling behind because of the few days he took off after...well, he needed to catch up regardless.

As soon as the last bell of the day rang, Lance was packed up and ready to book it out of there. He felt like he _needed_ to get back to the pier, to see if what he had witnessed had actually happened.

"Lance!"

Spinning around, the brunet looked back at Hunk, who was still standing at his locker. "Where you goin'? Weren't we gonna head out for something to eat?" Pidge popped their head out from behind Hunk and nodded in agreement.

"Uh..I've got some stuff to take care of, okay? Raincheck?"

He didn't wait for their response. There was something nagging at him, some hope that he wasn't imagining things. It nagged at him the entire way to his jeep, the entire way down to the docks. He _needed_ to make sure that it was real.

 _But what if it wasn't real?_ Lance asked himself as he slammed the door to his jeep and shoved his keys in his pocket. What if it had only been his grief stricken mind making things up? _Maybe I should just go back and hang out with Hunk and Pidge._ But he shook his head to disengage that thought. He wasn't going to give up on this. If it was real, it was real. If it was just his imagination, he would be disappointed, but he would move on. Simple as that.

Taking a breath, the brunet stomped forward. All the rain from the day previous had dried up, as was normal. Lance could still remember the way the rain had fallen against the ground, the way the entire sky seemed to be overwhelmed in sadness. Or maybe it had just been his own mind.

His footsteps were loud against the ancient wood of the pier, the hard soles of his shoes slamming into the boards at every deliberate stride.

When Lance reached the end, there was nothing; nothing but the open ocean and the fish that glided around just below the surface. There was nothing but the sound of the waves gently lapping at the sandy beach. There wasn't a single other soul around, and there was no glowing orb or shimmering scales.

Sighing, the brunet sat down on the edge of the pier and crossed his arms. What had he expected? Honestly? That a mythical creature would just _be there_ waiting for him?

"Yeah, how stupid am I?" he muttered to himself, not that anyone was there to hear him anyway. He cast his eyes out onto the matching blue of the ocean before him, taking in the sights as if it was the first time. It would always feel like the first time in Lance's mind.

He'd lived here for years, since he was still a kid, but the beauty of the ocean never ceased to amaze him. However, the depths held more than just wonder and beauty. It also held pure terror, the kind of terror Lance felt whenever he went out too far. There was so much that mankind didn't know about the ocean. Nobody knew what could be lurking out in the depths, or even just below the surface.

Lance let out a low whistle, listening to the way the sound floated out over the still water. He loved the ocean, loved the way it could nullify the sounds around him, loved the way it made him feel when he was completely surrounded by water. Sometimes, he wondered if he was meant to be a part of the ocean instead of a part of the earth.

Untying his shoes and pulled his socks off, he thought about the mermaid again. So maybe his mind had made it up because he was sad and needed a distraction, but who was to say that they _didn't_ exist. The ocean was huge, and so much of it hadn't even been explored yet. He sunk his feet into the water and relished in the way it lapped against his ankles. He was thankful that the pier had sunk in recent years. When he was still in grade school, the water had been at least a foot or two below the edge of the pier, and no matter how hard Lance tried, he couldn't reach it with his feet.

It was a nice feeling, his feet floating in open water. The water wasn't too cold, even though summer hadn't arrived yet. The air was still a little chilly, but it wouldn't' stay that way for long. It was nearing the end of April, and school would let out in a couple of months. The tourists would flock in and Lance wouldn't have time to just sit out here anymore. He'd be forced to work at his parents' bookstore the entire summer. And she wouldn't be there to make it fun anymore.

Without realizing, Lance slipped his hand into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around that key-chain again. It had belonged to her, and she had given it to Lance a few weeks before she died, wanting him to hold onto it for safekeeping. _It's important_ , she'd told him, but she would never tell the brunet why.

Lance's mind darkened again as he lightly pulled the warm metal from his pocket. Resting it in his palm, he tried to look at it and not let the tears come. It was small, smaller than it had looked in her hand. It was an owl, or at least if vaguely resembled one shape-wise, the white and black crystals adorning it having fallen out years ago. Sighing, the brunet closed his eyes and wrapped the keychain in his fist. He was supposed to have thrown it into the ocean yesterday...because that's what she had asked him to do. But he couldn't. It was the only thing Lance had left of her. He couldn't just...throw it away, even if she wanted him to.

Wiping the tears from his eyes with his free hand, the brunet attempted to slide the key-chain back in his pocket, but as he went to bring his hand back, it slipped through his fingers. The entire thing seemed to happen in slow motion, and Lance watched as the small, metal owl hit the pier between his legs and bounced off into the water. He'd tried to catch it, but he was too slow. It hit the surface with a light _plunk_ ing sound and sunk.

"No, no, NO!" he cried out, not even thinking before he was yanking his sweater off and his shirt over his head. He was _not_ going to lose it at a time like this, just because he was being stupid and not paying attention. Without stopping to wonder if this was actually the right thing to do, Lance was diving into the cool water.

Lance could still see the sun glinting off the metal as it sunk, and despite the stinging of the saltwater in his eyes, he kept them open. He kept his gaze on that glittering. Kicking his legs with more force, the brunet sunk deeper and deeper, the water growing darker and darker. He absently wondered how the ocean floor could be so far down when he was still relatively close to shore.

By the time the pressure in his lungs at not taking a breath became too much, Lance realized that he would not be able to reach the ground. He couldn't. He didn't have enough air. Ceasing in his efforts, the brunet began to swim upwards, but it was already too late. He had gone too far, past the point of return. He wouldn't be able to make it.

And it was with that thought that he started to panic.

Now, Lance had always been at home in the water, whether it be a pool or the ocean, but he had never stopped to think about how terrifying it would be to be so far from the surface and out of air. He hadn't ever thought that the panic he would feel at the threat of drowning would be all consuming, overpowering. But it was.

Despite that soul-wrenching panic coursing through his veins, Lance still knew that there was no hope of him surviving. So he stopped struggling. He let his limbs relax and let the air he had held in for so long go.

His vision grew darker, his mind grew groggier, but he felt weightless, like the water was taking all of his fears and guilt go. Like he could finally be at piece.

But then something caught his eye.

Even in his darkening vision, he saw an orb of red float around him, drawing his eyes. As he followed it, another color came into view. Grey, flecked with violet; two glowing orbs of violet. They looked like eyes. And as he saw those eyes, he heard...singing. However, it wasn't in a language he knew. It was pretty, calming. As whatever it was that owned those eyes wrapped itself around Lance's almost lifeless body, he felt the burning in his chest recede, and it all faded into nothingness.


	2. Chapter 2: Födelse - Birth

Lance's first thought as his mind came back into focus was, _Am I dead?_ His second thought, _No, I can't be. My chest hurts way too much for me to be dead._

Blinking tired, stinging eyes open, Lance's vision was still very much out of focus. Everything was too bright. Too blurry. The brunet let out a groan and tried to shift his body slightly. He could feel the old, splintering wood of the pier underneath his back and shoulder. He must have been laying on his side because, even though he couldn't really see it, the world seemed like it was titled on its axis.

Cursing low under his breath, Lance attempted to sit up. His arms felt like jelly. After what seemed like at least four unsuccessful attempts, Lance pushed himself up into a sitting position. He put a hand to his head and let out a breath. His lungs felt like they were on fire.

 _How did I get back on the pier?_ he wondered, trying to blink the fogginess from his eyes. _I was...I was drowning? Wasn't I?_

"You know, this little trinket is, like, the most idiotic reason to throw your life away."

Yelping at the sudden voice, Lance clambered backwards and looked around quickly, trying to find the source. It took at least two rounds before his eyes landed on someone at the edge of the pier, head resting on one arm as they twirled a key-chain, _Lance's_ key-chain around their finger. As the brunet's eyes finally focused, his jaw dropped.

Not only was this random person the _definition_ of attractive with almond shaped eyes, high cheekbones, and perfectly shaped lips that were pulled up in a smirk, all framed by silken, raven locks, but he...he was also...he had…

"Is that a tail?" Lance squeaked out, cerulean eyes wide as he attempted to take in the sight before him. Flicking in and out of the water lazily, disrupting the natural flow of the waves only just, was indeed a mermaid's tail, covered in iridescent crimson scales. Lance found himself entranced, the droplets of water that were spread over it glinting in the afternoon sun.

A snort pulled his attention away from the tail and back to the mermaid's face. "Well, what the hell else would it be?"

Blinking at the aggression in the words, Lance drew his brows together and titled his head.

"Okay, I've got to be hallucinating," the brunet muttered, eyes sliding to stare at the tail again. There was no way that this was real. It just wasn't possible. How could there really be a mythical creature in front of him right now? It was true that he'd hoped it would be real before, but with the memory of the water filling his lungs still on the forefront, he just wanted it to be a dream.

Lance sputtered as water was suddenly thrown at his face with such force that it almost knocked him onto his back. As he wiped the salty liquid from his eyes, he saw one dark brow quirked up on the mermaid's face, the smirk from before still present.

"What about now, lover boy? Still think its a dream?"

 _Lover boy?_ Turning his head away slightly, wariness creeping into his expression, Lance leaned forward and reached a hand out. The water in the face had been a good tactic, but he couldn't be totally sure until he touched the being before him. The tips of his fingers brushed against the mermaid's soft cheek, the skin still slightly damp, as if he had still been in the water until just recently. _Okay, so maybe it's real._

Lance yanked his hand back before shoving it under his leg. He hadn't even _asked_ if he could touch the mermaid or not. Like...how rude could you be? Clearing his throat, Lance kept his eyes locked on a spot somewhere to the left of where the mermaid's tail was. "So, uh. Do you know how I got back up here? I, uh, I was..." He wasn't sure _what_ had happened. One moment he had been giving up on living, on surviving, and the next he was back up on the pier as if nothing had happened.

"Duh, I put you there?"

Eyes flying towards the mermaid's face again, Lance let out a choked sound. "W-what?"

The raven-haired mermaid rolled his eyes, and something about them drew a memory from Lance's mind. Grey orbs that glowed purple while a song surrounded him. Was _that_ a hallucination? Something his mind conjured up as the lack of oxygen overtook him?

Letting go of the pier, the mermaid sunk back down into the water, getting his hair wet before he came back up. He then proceeded to swim in lazy circles in front of Lance, the sun shimmering over his skin and the scales of his tail as he did so.

"I was down by my rock, just minding my own business when _you_ just show up and at first, I was just gonna let you drown, 'cause, like, it was your own stupidity that brought you down there," the ravenette explained, lifting his hand to spin that key-chain around his finger again.

"Hey, can I-?"

"But I decided, you know what? It would be rude to just leave you there, so I helped. Gave you some air and flopped you back outta the water. You're welcome, by the way."

Narrowing his eyes at the interruption, Lance stared at the way the water rippled around the mermaid's form, only barely displacing the waves as he gracefully swung his tail through the water. The brunet had a feeling that he wasn't going to get the metal trinket back anytime soon, so he resigned himself to sliding further towards the edge of the pier. Dipping his feet back into the water, he tried to formulate a coherent thought, his brain still muddled after the ordeal.

"Why have I never seen you before?"

Carding a hand through his dark hair, the mermaid quirked an eyebrow once again. "Do you really think that I would just _let_ a random human see me?" the mermaid asked in favor of answering the question.

Lance opened and closed his mouth a few times, heat rising in his cheeks. He turned his eyes towards a spot down near his feet and muttered, "You did yesterday."

The soft sloshing of the saltwater around the mermaid stopped suddenly and the mermaid's raven-haired head popped up in between Lance's feet. Leaning back slightly, Lance kept his eyes firmly planted on the water and not those pretty grey eyes that had once glowed purple. "What do you mean?" the mermaid asked, tilting his head to the side. The expression on his face held such innocent confusion, that Lance was tempted to poke at the creature's cheeks. He managed to hold back the urge, but only just.

"You jumped in yesterday afternoon. You turned into a mermaid right in front of my eyes. I thought mermaids couldn't exist out of the water?"

The innocent expression turned to an annoyed, deadpan kind of look and suddenly, the mermaid swiped his tail swiftly through the water, propelling him up. The raven-haired creature thrust his hands out and pushed back against Lance's shoulders. The brunet's back collided with the hard wood of the pier and his head cracked against it.

Lifting a hand to rub at the growing sore spot on the back of his head, Lance groaned and stared at the mermaid that was now laying on top of him, the crimson of his scales glimmering in the light. The mermaid slapped his hands on the pier on either side Lance's head.

"I'm not a _mermaid!_ I'm a Siren! Si-Ren!"

 _Siren?_ Lance had heard that term before, but wasn't it used to describe those awful creatures that dragged sailors to their deaths?

"Well, aren't they the same thing?" Lance wondered, not at all discontent with the heavy warmth of the creature above him.

The mer—no, the _Siren_ let out a strangled sound and rolled off of Lance, throwing up his hands. "Of course not!"

Vaguely wondering why the sudden absence of the Siren's warmth upset him, Lance sat up and looked down at the way those raven locks splayed out around his head. The Siren's hands were covering his face now, and the brunet noticed that he wore a red stone on a leather cord wrapped around his wrist. _Was that the source of that red that I'd seen yesterday and earlier?_ Shoving the thought into the metaphorical folder for _topics addressed at another time,_ Lance pulled his legs up and crossed them. "So, what's the difference?"

The Siren slid his hands from his face and focused his cesious eyes on Lance. At the sudden intensity of the look, Lance felt a weird shiver creep up his spine. "The difference?" the ravenette repeated, his voice dropping several octaves. He held a hand out and motioned for Lance to help him sit up. The brunet was tempted to ignore it, so he could see the Siren struggle, but opted for being _nice_. Pulling the other into a sitting position, Lance lifted his eyebrows, urging the raven-haired creature to continue. "The difference is that a Siren could kill you with their bare hands." He paused and leaned forward, suddenly so close that their noses could almost touch. " _I_ could kill you with my bare hands," he hissed, grey eyes sparking.

"Okay? And?" Lance was determined to not show any fear in front of the Siren. He had no doubt in his mind that the creature could kill him, but that didn't mean that he was gonna spur the guy on.

"And what?"

"And what about mermaids?"

Rolling those cesious eyes, the Siren lifted his hand again and spun Lance's key-chain around his finger once more. Lance was a little surprised that he was still holding onto it. " _Mermaids,_ " the Siren spat, as if he hated the word and it was like poison in his mouth, "Are pretty and innocent and were _born_ as mermaids, and they _don't exist_. All those stories about mermaids are literally just stupid knock offs of what we really are." He paused and looked out at the ocean, the annoyed expression on his face fading into something contemplative. "We aren't innocent and full of happiness. We're just lost. We're lost and want our lives back, to be human again. We were made to kill, to take human lives and turn them into Sirens. We aren't...innocent."

As he spoke, the Siren's voice got softer, more filled with emotion. Something in Lance screamed at him to reach out and comfort this creature, but he wasn't sure if the Siren would let him.

Instead, the brunet reached out and ruffled the other's raven hair, causing him to swat at Lance's hands and emit several whiny, exasperated noises.

"Dude! Not cool!"

A smirk tugged at the corners of Lance's mouth as he took his hands away. The Siren's hair was now thoroughly mussed, strands sticking up in awkward intervals. "You sound pretty innocent to me," Lance said, a chuckle painting his voice in a positive light, hoping that it would make the Siren feel a little less...whatever he was at this moment. "At least, I refuse to believe that someone without any innocence would save the life of a complete stranger."

The more Lance thought about it, and believe you me, he _was_ thinking about it harder than he'd ever thought about anything in his entire life, the more this entire ordeal sounded like that scene from the Little Mermaid. _Well, the Disney version anyway._ It almost seemed as if this Siren was Ariel and Lance was Prince Eric. The entire idea brought a bubble of almost manic laughter up his throat.

The Siren next to him angled his face away, a skeptical look rising in his face. "You're really weird, you know that?"

Lance blinked, that laughter bubbling up again to completely spill from his lips. His hand rose to scratch at the back of his head. "Yeah, my friends tell me that a lot!" he chuckled, then winced as his fingers brushed against the knot that was forming at the back of his head from when the Siren knocked him over earlier. "Ouch. That's gonna be a nasty bump tomorrow," he murmured, squinting against the throbbing in his skull.

"Shit, are you okay?" The Siren suddenly surged forward, his hands sliding into Lance's hair as if to check the wound for himself. Lance felt an urge to scramble backwards, to get as far away from this creature that had only minutes before threatened to murder him _except, that's not really how it went_. However, the urge flew right out the proverbial window as soon as Lance saw the worry in those beautiful grey eyes that were so unlike any he'd seen in his life.

There was light in them, a type of life that Lance had only ever seen once before, in eyes that were so different than the ones in front of him now. Their blue hues intermingled with a strange shade of pink, all because of a weird mutation. The ones in front of him now were full of life, but also seemed just as lifeless. There was a desire for it, but no such life existed in their slate colored depths.

"You still alive in there?"

Lance's body shook as his mind came out of his thoughts, focusing not on the contradictory nature of those eyes and instead on the look of concern that colored the Siren's face. "Uhm. I. Just. Yes. Yeah, I'm…" The teen's staggering words came to a stop, and something glinting in the sunlight caught his eye. _The keychain_.

It was still held tightly in the raven-haired Siren's hand, but it now rested against the splintered wood beneath the two of them, having taken his hands away from Lance's head while the brunet had been lost in his thoughts. Lance had been so set on getting it back earlier, but the longer he wanted the creature play with it, flaunt it in front of the brunet, the less he really wanted it back. _You were supposed to drop it in the ocean anyway_. _Isn't that what she wanted?_ It was, but up until this point, Lance hadn't thought about honoring her wish.

The Siren dropped his concerned gaze from Lance's face down to the keychain as well. He blew out a puff of annoyed air and crossed his arms, taking the small, metal owl from Lance's sight. "Alright, what is it with this thing, huh?"

Lance blinked and slowly brought his eyes back up to meet his companion's. "Wha-?"

Words getting cut off as the ravenette dangled the keychain in front of Lance's nose, Lance leaned back slightly.

"This!" the creature blurted, shaking it. "What is it with you and this stupid little trinket? First you almost drown yourself because of it, and now you won't stop staring at it." Using his opposite hand, the Siren poked Lance between his eyebrows. "What. Is. It?" Each word fell on another jab of the Siren's finger.

"It…" Lance took a breath and brushed that painful finger from his face. "It belongs... _belonged_...to a friend of mine." Cerulean eyes turned to the side, not wanting to see those eyes that were so like hers but so different. Maybe they were the reason that, despite the implication that this creature could kill him and the fact that _he shouldn't exist_ , Lance felt so comfortable with the Siren, as if they had known each other for as long as they'd lived. Of course, that was impossible; logically, Lance knew that his mind was just trying to make a connection because of that soul-deep feeling of loss that persisted after her death.

"Belonged as in?" the Siren urged, wrist rolling as if to say, _any day now._

Lance winced again, watching as a breeze picked up and shifted the creature's now air dried hair over his forehead. The strands danced and circled around the Siren's ears, and it seemed similar to the way hair moved in the water. To be honest, the brunet had always loved watching the sway of hair through the ocean waves, had spent far too many hours watching as the sea and the sun had filtered through her hair. And all the while, as the memories he had tried to keep away resurfaced as strongly as if he had seen it just the day before, Lance couldn't get over the fact of how much he missed her. Her voice, her smile, everything. All the memories succeeded in doing was make Lance feel even more lonely than he had before he came here.

"She died."

The statement seemed to take the creature aback, and he leaned away from Lance as if the brunet had struck him. "Oh." That was it. That was all the Siren said as he hugged his arms over his middle and looked out at the ocean again, those slate-like eyes becoming stormy, filled with several emotions that Lance wasn't sure he could decipher without the ravenette telling him. Even when he spoke, the Siren kept those eyes away, seemingly content to stare at the endlessness of the sea. He seemed...lonely all of a sudden, as if Lance's confession had taken something from him.

After several minutes, the Siren's lips parted, a stuttered breath filtering between them. "I'm...I'm sorry," he said, putting emphasis on the words, which gave the brunet the impression that he felt particularly responsible for what Lance was feeling. Which, again, Lance knew was completely absurd, because this Siren could have had nothing to do with her death. She hadn't drowned, so this creature couldn't have been responsible. Almost cryptically, the Siren suddenly continued, "That must be why your heart is blue."

"What?" _My heart is blue? What the hell does that mean?_ Clarifying, the brunet questioned, "What do you mean by that?"

The Siren winced, as if he hadn't meant to say anything in the first place, as if Lance wasn't supposed to know the _color of his heart_ , or whatever the raven-haired creature had said. "It's...nothing. Really." However, from the Siren's body language, the way his body had stiffened and was now angled away from Lance, it clearly was anything but _nothing_. The teen felt the need to push, to figure out what the creature had meant, but logically, he knew that that wasn't going to help. So instead, he pursed his lips and sighed.

"Welp," Lance blurted, sitting straight and throwing a smirk at the creature, pretending that none of this had seemed weird in any shape or form. "That's okay. It's probably a big Siren secret and a measly human like me has no right to that information."

A strangled chuckle drew from the raven-haired creature's throat, and he wiped the guilty look from his face. It was very quickly replaced by that same smirk that Lance had first seen when he had woken up earlier. "You're goddamn right, you've got no right." Something flashed in his eyes then, and he rested his palms against the pier once more, leaving forward to stick his nose close to Lance's nose, so close that they were almost touching. "Unless you'd like to trade places and become a Siren, and then I can tell you _aaalll_ about it."

The teen could tell that the Siren was only half joking, that he had every intention of turning Lance into a Siren, if only Lance agreed.

"Uhm, no thanks," said Lance, scratching at his cheek. He put a mildly concerned-for-his-own-wellbeing look on his face and continued, "As much as I love the ocean, I don't think I'd like to become a creature that can only exist in it."

A raven brow quirked in amusement. " _That's_ the only reason you don't want to become a Siren?"

"Apart from not wanting to drag people to their deaths at the bottom of the sea, yep."

Laughter barked from the Siren, and the creature leaned back to flop against the pier, shaking as each laugh ripped through him. Lance watched in silence as tears sprang to the creature's eyes, all the while trying to speak through his laughter. It wasn't working, and even the Siren seemed to realize that, because he stopped trying.

"You...you've been watching too many movies!" the ravenette finally managed to blurt out once his laughter had faded someone. "That's not how it works, you know!"

"How am I supposed to know that?" Lance countered, leaning forward to loom over the amused Siren. "Until yesterday, I didn't even know you _existed_."

The giggles that had been a constant for the last few minutes came to a halt, and the creature seemed to have a dawning realizing. "Shit, you're right! My bad!"

Now, it was Lance's turn to laugh. For a being that was supposed to be murderous in it's seduction of the weak willed, this Siren sure seemed a little...less than _all there_. The teen found himself smiling fondly down at the creature, a little bit of that loneliness that had consumed him fade.

But just as he was about to pick on the Siren some more, there was an earth shattering clap of thunder above them. Both the human and the Siren jumped at the sound, and Lance found confusion being written across his features. Where only minutes before there had been soft, cloudless skies, now thick, angry storm clouds were spreading above them. "What in the hell? It's not supposed to rain today," Lance muttered as he watched the storm roll in.

The Siren suddenly jolted upright, a look of panic darkening his eyes as he almost headbutted Lance in the nose. "I have to go," he blurted, throwing out his hands to push the confused brunet away from him. If it hadn't been for the hands that Lance still had against the sun-bleached boards of the pier, he would have toppled over backwards into the water.

"What? Why all of a sudden?"

Raven hair flew as the creature shook his head quickly, shifting back away from Lance. "I just-" He slipped off into the water suddenly, tail throwing up a plume of saltwater in its wake as he pushed himself further away from the pier.

"Wait!" Lance called, scrambling to the edge and gripping at its splintered surface. "What about my keychain!"

"I have to go _now_!" the Siren yelled, looking back over his shoulder. "I'm being called and if I don't go now, it'll only get worse!" The ravenette glanced up at the growing storm as he spoke, and the wind ripped at Lance's only slightly damp clothing.

"But-"

"NO!" The yell was accompanied by a burst of water that soaked Lance through once again. The Siren looked on in apology as the tide suddenly pulled outwards. "Listen! Come back tomorrow, and I'll give it to you then! But right now I have to _go_."

The waves grew choppy, and the pier pitched to the side, almost sending Lance off the edge once more. "Wh-what time!?" he questioned, lamely, knowing that the Siren wouldn't be able to give him an actual time. But if the brunet was being honest, he didn't really want the creature to leave, to take away a little bit of the warmth that Lance had gained just by him being there.

"Tomorrow morning! That's all I can tell you!"

And then raven tresses ducked beneath the waves with nothing more than a slap of a crimson scaled tail against the surface of the water. The Siren was gone and Lance watched on in terrified fascination as the storm followed him out to sea, leaving the brunet as alone as he truly felt.


End file.
